Bad Trevor

Designed by Mark Hurdle and published by Fist Bump Games, Bad Trevor is a light comic-book-inspired card game where the 3-5 players are juggling hands of cards representing heroes, villains and civilians. It's a card shedding game where, for a short game, you want to be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand or, in a longer, fuller game, not be the player who is the only one left with one or more cards in hand.

Basic turns involve players selecting three cards from their hand and placing them out face down. Their neighbouring player selects one and reveals it. If it's a hero or villain, they place the card on the discard pile and take the effect set out on the card. As you might guess, hero cards generally give you effects which are beneficial while villain cards do the opposite.

Civilians have no effect and go into your hand. There's a matching pair for each civilian card, and whenever you hold a pair you can discard it. As in Go Fish and Go Farm! (Professor Puzzle), you can also ask another player if they have the matching civilian to go with one you hold. If they do, they have to give you the card and you carry on with your turn (ie: offering up three cards to your neighbour) but if they don't then your unsuccessful Go Fish action ends your turn. When your Go Fish action is successful, you have the option to reverse the direction of play.

Bad Trevor is the game's ultimate supervillain. It's the card you don't want to be stuck with because it can never be discarded. If a player picks it from the three cards they are offered, they have to pick up all three cards, not just the one they chose. And if a player picks up all three cards, all the other players know precisely which hand Bad Trevor is in... Here's where reversing the direction of play can be useful because it can be used to reduce the prospect of the Bad Trevor card making its way to you.

The card game then is essentially one of bluff and counter-bluff, very much enhanced by players' in-character banter and table talk. Other than at the start of the game you pretty much always know which player has the Bad Trevor card so there's not so much of a deduction element. The game tho' does offer a 'Hail Mary'-type catch-up mechanic through the use of a reckless hero card - Kamikaze Kevin - that is on the table and available to any of the players. If you are pretty sure you know which card on the table is Bad Trevor, you can pick up Kamikaze Kevin and play it onto that card. If you're right, you give all your cards to the player of the Bad Trevor card. If you're wrong, it's the player you challenged who gives you all their cards...

Bad Trevor doesn't reinvent the wheel but it makes for a fun pass-the-parcel/musical chairs card game with a party game vibe, and Steve Penfold's comic book art definitely adds to the game's appeal.

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